Chennai lawyer claims cops picked up VVA Hotels owner in betting case

Vikram Aggarwal -- owner of VVA Hotels -- who has been issued summons by CBCID was picked up by 'somebody' from his house Monday morning

In a latest development in the IPL-related match fixing case, an advocate representing Vikram Aggarwal -- owner of francisee for hotel Radison Blu in Egmore, Chennai -- alleged that his client has been in police custody since Monday morning.

According to reports, the Mumbai police is also expected to issue a summon to Aggarwal, as the arrested actor Vindoo Dara Singh allegedly named him in the match-betting case.

According to Abudu Kumar, advocate who represents Aggarwal, of VVA Hotels Pvt Ltd, the CBCID in Tamil Nadu has summoned him as a witness in the match betting case it is investigating.

While the summons notice sought him to appear before the police on May 30, he was allegedly picked up by somebody from his house today morning, said Kumar. However, the CBCID officials denied any such action from their part.

"We have no information about where he is. We suspect that he has been picked up by the CBCID, since they had issued a summons to him asking him to appear on May 30," said Kumar. He said the action was unexpected and the further course of action has to be thought of.

Meanwhile, a senior official from CBCID said that they have not taken anybody in the name as of now. However, he refused to comment to a question whether Aggarwal is under the radar of the police's investigation.

However, according to reports, the Mumbai police is likely to issue a summons notice to Aggarwal, to question him related to the alleged betting scam which it has unearthed. It said that Vindoo, who was earlier arrested in relation to the match betting in IPL, informed the police that Aggarwal was into betting and has also connections with some Hindi film celebrities.

It may be noted that the Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group has announced the launch of Radison Blu hotel in Egmore almost a year back and the franchisee was Vikram Aggarwal, of VVA Hotels Pvt Ltd.

The Tamil Nadu Police announced on Monday that it has secured Sanjay Baffna, who is alleged to be one of the key persons in the cricket betting from Chennai during the IPL matches. Earlier, the police took few of the bookies into their custody including Harish Bajaj, S. Virudhachalam also known as S. Vedhachalam, Lucky alias Narpath Jain, Pappu alias Praveen Kumar Goutham, Deepak Bajaj, Sunil Bajanlal, Uttam C Jain alian Kitty and Jasraj Jain alias Raja.